The Reports Of My Laziness Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

I’m in. I got the keys three weeks ago. I still don’t have a phone line or the internet so, to post this, I walked to Broadmead where a store called Evesham Technology has an unprotected wireless network. This is my third afternoon on a bench in the street. I suppose I could sit in the McDonalds next door, but you have to have some class.

The day I moved in I brought my computer, some tools and a bag full of clothes. Moving the rest of my stuff out of Phil’s took a single trip, not counting the double mattress I took on loan. Try getting one of those in the back of a Ford Focus without bending it, missus.



I spent the equivalent of five thousand dollars that first day. Add it up: a month’s rent, six weeks’ deposit, bed, sofa, armchair, bookcase, coffee table, kettle, toaster, video recorder, cuddly toy... I rushed back to Phil’s and bought something online (about which more later) that evening so it would add to the day’s total. The salesman needs to make his targets! It was all budgeted-for, naturally, but splurging that much at once felt good.

“The comfort of my own home.” How good does it feel to say that after leeching off my friends and family since September? I feel like I belong where I am for the first time since Brighton, which was before I went to America and misplaced my mojo two-and-a half years ago. In fact, I may even have to call it progress on Brighton.

Briefly now because I’ve said it before, the bathroom’s on your right as you enter. I can’t stand up in the shower so I bathe a lot. Stairs on the left lead up to my bedroom. It has a sloping roof so it feels like converted loft space. The main room is a 1000ft cubed box with a kitchen in one corner. A brand new kitchen with brand new appliances. In a refreshing twist on the norm the few things that don’t work here don’t work yet because they’re still being installed, not because they’re broken and the landlord doesn’t care to fix them. It was definitely worth the wait.